Italian Chicken

Serene confidence makes for good waiting.  Steve and I ate yet more pastry and enjoyed another cappuccino before crossing the street through that beautiful fall weather.  We checked in for a flight to Aviano that would hold over one hundred and for which only about thirty people were waiting.  This not only gave us the secure feeling that we would go, but also that we would go in comfort because we could choose our seats once on board.

Always in search of a strong internet signal, we found the elevator and headed up to the USO.    We had grabbed a couple of those lovely European sandwiches, cold cuts and tomatoes and mozzarella on two different kinds of crusty bread.   We left messages and caught up with Facebook while we munched and waited.

Back downstairs at roll call time we were called in the second group of ten and started the check-in process.  Being the friendly, teasing sweetheart that he is sometimes works for Steve, sometimes not.  This time our agent was just as teasing and there was much laughing as we went through the process.  Steve asked for first-class seats; she replied something to the effect that all the seats were first-class.  We were just glad to be on the plane!

We moved upstairs again, happy to be free of those heavy bags.  After a short wait, we were allowed to board and found our seats.  We looked and each other and said, “There must be a mistake.”  We were in first class seats!  We sat down and began to play with buttons.  Our seats reclined; we stretched out our legs and still could not touch the seats in front of us.  It was a regular carnival!

The flight was short, only a little over an hour, and we were almost sorry.  We were flying above heavy clouds and at one point Steve remarked that he thought he saw snow-covered peaks poking up through them.  I smiled and thought, “Sweet man.  Wishful thinking.”  Suddenly just as we broke through the clouds, our plane tipped to the right on our side.  Displayed before us were the majestic and awe-inspiring snowy peaks of the Alps as far as we could see.

Flying Space A is convenient and the price is certainly right.  But we are never far from the fact that it is a privilege and that there are those who are still serving and working for our good.  We shared this plane with a large group of airmen dressed in desert camouflage and bound for Qatar.

Because the flight was delayed to begin with and then we had waited for over an hour on the tarmac in Ramstein, our flight into Aviano did not arrive until after 6:00 PM.  It is a small air base in Italy and there is only one hotel, the Mountain View Inn, named for the fact that it is nestled in the base of the Dolomites, beautiful Italian mountains.  Those of us who were staying the night found our way to a small, creaky blue bus and somehow managed to stuff all our bodies, bags and luggage into every last square inch of space.  

Checked in and refreshed, we realized that we were hungry.  The only restaurant on the base was closed and our only hope was a food court in the base exchange.  We found out that there are no taxis allowed on base (this did not bode well for the next morning, but we refused to worry tonight), so we started walking at a quick pace because we did not know when the food court would close.

We huffed and puffed through doors to the exchange and sighed relief that the restaurants were still open.  All but the pizza place.  So we had our choice between Taco Bell, Burger King and Popeye’s Chicken.  We were hungry.  Finally we sat down, grinning at each other, and toasted our arrival in Italy with a diet coke and a chicken leg.